From China, across the squall strewn Indian Ocean . Through the steep, ship-breaking seas, of the Mozambique Channel . To round the Cape of Good Hope, where the meeting of three oceans mounds the waves high . Then the long haul north, the length of the Atlantic, to England . Crowding on canvas for every hour of that fifteen thousand mile passage.
Taeping and Aeriel vie for the title of first clipper home . Cradling the precious new season's crop, of China tea, in their holds . For the glory . For the fame . For the wealth that it will bring .
Cutty Sark floats serenely on a sea of mullioned glass . The gingerbread work, on her shapely stern, aflame in the winter sun . Framing her famous name.
Her cut-water hull . Built for sea-kindly fast passage-making - and for cargo carrying capacity . Toned and taut.
She reclines resplendent in a Greenwich dry dock berth . Her mighty rig dwarfing skeletal trees and waterfront buildings alike . Standing ready to harness the wind's energy . And transform it, once more, into a silent rush of globe circling speed.
Cutty Sark was launched, on the twenty second of November 1869, into a mercantile world on the cusp of a paradigm shift .
For the day of the steamship had dawned . And the shortcut Suez canal had opened . Cementing the economic advantage, of piston power over sail, on the China sea-trade route . She fought to be home first, from Fuzhou, for just eight short years . Before the era of the China tea clippers ended forever.
Undaunted, Cutty Sark carved a new niche, on the merino wool run, from Australia . Through the Southern Ocean . Riding the icy unfettered winds, of the Furious Fifties and the Roaring Forties, with the wandering albatross . Rounding the tempestuous tumult of Cape Horn ; where steamships feared to swim.
Storming past the stoic penguins of Patagonia and the Falkland Isles . Slowing in the heat soaked, wind starved, Doldrums ; with the lazily soaring tropic bird circling her mastheads . Leaving Recife, on the bulge of Brazil, to port . Seeking out the north east trades . Swooping home, over the swells of the western approaches.
Tired and travel worn . Bought and sold . Changing owners, renamed, multiple times . Her fortunes slowly declined, along with her cargoes, over ensuing decades.
Until, stormbound and disheveled, she sought shelter in Falmouth’s Carrick Roads . Where the seafaring eye, of captain Wilfred Dowman, piercing her crusting of salt rime, perceived her true pedigree . Recognised her as the last of a noble line . He vowed to preserve her for national posterity.
Cutty Sark's return to the London River has proved her salvation . Likewise, my return today, to the streets of London, has borne fruit. A Visa de Long Sejour is proudly pasted into my passport. Granting, Stargazer and I, the freedom to roam French waters at will, for a full six months this summer.
Picture Credits:
1. 'The Mighty Clippers' by Montague Dawson Bonhams Auction House
2. Cutty Sark cargo hold Roamingrequired.com
3. Cutty sark stern view CNN
4. Cutty Sark bow view Roamingrequired.com
5. Cutty Sark Krzystof Belczynski
6. 'Cutty Sark' by Louis Papaluca Getty Images
7. Felixstowe container port Me
8. 'Wandering Albatross in Flight' Mike Double
9. Cutty Sark Lloyd's Register archive
10. Cutty Sark, renamed Ferreira National Maritime Museum
11. Stargazer, Carrick Roads, Falmouth Me
12. 'Sailing into the Sunset,' Falmouth Me
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